all sun day
by verybrave
Summary: [29 Apr 2012] a picture and a name


"Nico Robin," he calls her because it doesn't seem right to call her anything else.

She's gone by a number of other names, he knows, slipping into each one as easily as she sprouts limbs, hands and eyes—soft breath of flower petals, edged smile.

For example: Ms. All-Sunday, he had read once in the newspapers, in a front-page article about a desert kingdom on the cusp of civil war. The kingdom's name he was all too familiar with—_Alabasta, Alabasta and Pluton and these blueprints and Tom, and Tom_—but what jumped out at him most, what he ended up repeating to himself for days afterwards, was the name Ms. All-Sunday.

Strange to come across a name like that in an article about faraway war, about a country with a set of customs suited to choking sands instead of rising waters.

He's never been to the Kingdom of Alabasta, but All-Sunday is something he's known for as long as he's called Water 7 home and All-Sunday is a big deal. It's the one day out of the entire year when he and Baka-burg won't argue, won't push and shove at each other like they've done since they were kids and Tom was still around.

It doesn't seem right to, when solemn bells are tolling all over Water 7 and the canals become arteries leading from the heart of city to the island cemetery just beyond its shores. He's never had reason to join the families before, the children holding freshly cut flowers in their little hands, the quiet, steady progression of people in their All-Sunday best. Now he does have reason, of course, but he's not allowed to take part anymore. His reputation precedes him and people have an annoying habit of screaming when he shows up. So he'd watch from the rooftops instead, with his own Family.

One Yagara Bull after the other, a somber parade. He'd hold out a hand, squeeze one eye shut, and watch as they pass single-file through the space between his thumb and forefinger. Like counting prayer beads, maybe, like he sometimes sees the old ladies doing outside their buildings with the crosses (he's never been inside one, but the colored windows catch the sun spectacularly—he might like to build a ship with windows like that one day). He'd count and count until all of Water 7 passes through his fingers, and then he'd wait.

Because when night falls and all the families have gone home and the candles they left behind are only pools of cooling wax, then it's his and Iceburg's turn. It's tradition now, that thing that ties you to a place, to someone long gone. They'd take a Bull themselves, just the two of them, and they won't snipe at each other, not even once. Tom would be proud. That's what they'd think, standing in a little corner of the island cemetery before Tom's grave with the headstone Franky had carved (when he came back, alive) and Iceberg had engraved and Kokoro had blessed.

Tom would be proud. That's what he'd let himself think, on All-Sunday, standing just inside the flickering circle of light from the candle in Iceburg's hands. Steady hands, even now.

Now, what kind of woman was a woman who called herself Ms. All-Sunday, he had wondered. There was a picture of her with the article, though it was grainy and unfocused, like it was zoomed in from a great distance, nowhere near wanted poster quality. In the picture, she was wearing a long white coat and a hat with a wide, curved brim. Like part mad scientist, part rogue cowgirl. Classy in a wicked way, is how he would have described her. He couldn't see her eyes, but the line of her mouth looked a little grim, a little sad, or was he imagining it? But he supposed All-Sunday would be that kind of woman. A little grim and a little sad. How else?

(For a long time, he had kept the newspaper clipping folded up and tucked in the inside pocket of his aloha shirt, but he forgot to take it out one day before Kiwi did the laundry and by the time he remembered, it was already pulp and splotchy ink. Ms. All-Sunday obliterated. But just her picture, he reminded himself, and that was ok. It was getting a little embarrassing how long he'd been carrying around that flimsy piece of paper.)

Devil child, he had also read many, many times. Another name, this one from the wanted posters that the Marines plastered onto the walls of back alleys and the undersides of bridges. The child in the poster had the look too, the one that made him think of nighttime and melted candles and empty earth; he could recognize it right away in her frown, her eyes, the knowing stare. Young, but a little grim and a little sad too. Iceburg had warned him about this child, now a grown woman capable of unspeakable destruction, but how could she be a monster? Monsters didn't grow up to be Ms. All-Sunday. No way.

Anyway, the important thing was: she could talk to the dead.

No one had told him this, and it definitely hadn't been in the paper, but it had to be true. Think about it. All these reports of her being able to read dead tongues. Why not talk to dead souls too? If anyone could, it had to be her. Because that was what All-Sunday was for. Honoring the dead, telling them how much they're missed—wish you were here, still here—and listening for an answer. And didn't she call herself Ms. All-Sunday? It wasn't a name you took on so casually. It came with responsibilities, you know, and didn't she look like a responsible woman underneath the grimness and the sadness?

Resolve, that's what it was. And All-Sunday had to have resolve, didn't she, or else she'd be spitting back dead souls for every crying, orphaned child and the world would be overrun with them, would sink like Water 7 is sinking under the weight of all that life and past-life. Couldn't have that, right? Or was it out of malice that All-Sunday kept the dead, hiding them in her long white coat, malice born of all the injustices in the world, and how do you tell the difference, and could you blame her, really?

She would know if Tom forgave him or not. She would know everything the dead had to say, on account of being Ms. All-Sunday. If he ever met her, that would be the first thing he asked—after, of course, he bought her a cola and complimented her fine hat. Maybe he could believe it too, if he heard it straight from her mouth. That had to count for something, right? It was something to wait for, something to hope for. It was what he needed these days to face the forever after.

Or maybe he was fooling himself, holding out for an impossibility. Because how could Tom ever forgive him? He couldn't even forgive himself. But she'd be able to tell him for sure. It would be ok if she said no.

It's not like he thought about her all the time, at least not like he thought about Tom. Tom was behind everything he did; All-Sunday was more of an indulgence he almost felt he didn't deserve (something like hope, like benediction). And sometimes he forgot about her completely, when he was too busy breaking up racketeering rings or dabbling in the black market or just generally being a super guy. But she'd always pop up again; he'd find her at the bottom of a tall glass of cola, or between the rays of the sun at the docks, or when he turned over in his bed at night, or out of the corner of his eye when digging around for his drafting triangle. Never more than a blur of black and white: the picture from the newspaper superimposed for a brief moment on the surface of his day. Smell of earth and wax.

A picture and a name. Ms. All-Sunday.

Funny how you go through life so sure of things, only to find you never had any idea.

Here she is now, in the flesh. Three-dimensional. Full color. Pin-sharp. The real deal. Ms. All-Sunday, only not really.

"Nico Robin," he calls her, because that's who she is.

He knew that going in, of course, that he was riding through Aqua Laguna to bring back a woman named Nico Robin, but his image of her had remained black and white and fuzzy—the graininess and flatness and static hush of All-Sunday. It was all he had to go on, to trust in. But it's obvious now that she's nothing like that, nothing like the Ms. All-Sunday he had imagined for so long, monochrome and silent and cold. It's obvious she's not anything but Nico Robin; she's vivid, even through the grimness and the sadness. And he wonders, sitting two feet away from her, both of them in chains, he wonders just what kind of woman is Nico Robin exactly?

A woman who would bring the world to its knees if it meant she got what she wanted, and what did she want but the safety of her once-crew, the bunch of kids who have yet to grow out of too-wide smiles and faith and dreams. She would give her life for them, her freedom, her dream—if they'd let her. (They won't.)

And that's not like All-Sunday at all. All-Sunday never gives anything no matter how long you've been standing there with hot candle wax burning your hand, no matter how hard you're not-crying. He's learned that All-Sunday does not know how to love, does not make you feel loved; All-Sunday only knows how to draw love from you, make you bare the human pieces of yourself you thought you had buried so cleverly underneath all the metal plates and circuitry. These pieces that you lay down with the flowers and collect again when the candle's gone out because there's nobody alive who wants them now. That's how All-Sunday goes. At the end of the day, the earth stays empty, and silent. Not even a whisper in the wind. Maybe it's malice after all.

But Nico Robin here would give everything, she's a woman who knows the price of what she wants and would pay it willingly, and Nico Robin knows how to love, which is not always easy. Sometimes it's desperate, sometimes it's the last thing you can do. But she does love, he knows, because no one's voice cracks like that for anything else. He finds himself wondering, if he laid a piece of himself at her feet—would she want it, would she take it, keep it folded up and tucked in some secret pocket?

Nico Robin. The name rolls off the tongue, and it sums up perfectly all the gears and cogs whirring away inside her: love and cunning and loss and something All-Sunday-esque, sure, but here are also the hidden, rusted parts of herself that are starting to turn again after all these years. Parts that make her Nico Robin, deep down to the core. Watching Strawhat and his crew line up across from them, the World Government's flag in flames above their heads, he sees that Nico Robin gives more and means more than even All-Sunday.

"I want to live!" says Nico Robin. She's sobbing, and he feels as if the ground is opening up beneath him, like it never did on All-Sunday no matter how hard he wished. "Take me out to sea with you!"

Oh, jeez. He swears he's not crying. It's just the smoke from these burning blueprints getting in his eyes, see? Honest.

Here are the bare bones of it: For All-Sunday he had bowed his head for years. Now, for Nico Robin he'll fight with everything he's got.

* * *

It's the hardest thing, to forgive yourself. Almost as hard as forgiving someone for grabbing your important bits _down there_, but when that someone is Nico Robin, it's a little bit easier, what with the way she smiles at you. You stop sobbing and try to swagger best you can afterwards. She expects nothing less, and a man should live up to expectations, butt-naked or not.

Funny how you go through life so sure of things, only to find you never had any idea. Can you believe it? He's forgiven after all.

He's crying buckets now that it's time to leave, but that's allowed. Goodbyes are like that. A feeling that swells up inside him. Feels like bursting. New meaning to the phrase _blow a gasket_.

The Marines and their less-than-super cannonballs only give them trouble for a little while. He scoffs at them. Don't they know, this is the ship that he had built and Iceberg had named and all of Water 7 had blessed. You won't find a stronger ship anywhere on the seas.

Watch if you don't believe him.

(He's right.)

* * *

A new ship, a new crew, a new adventure.

The quiet is almost jarring after the explosions and guns going off and buildings collapsing and people screaming at him. He rests assured knowing that it can't possibly be like this for long. Strawhat and his gang aren't exactly creatures of peace. But it's ok to have a little respite every once in a while. Recharge, refuel, oil some hinges, get some kinks worked out.

He walks across the lawn to where Nico Robin and the long-nose kid are sitting at the wrought iron patio table Pauly had contributed. The grass feels good underfoot, soft and cool and a little tickly. He'll give himself a pat on the back for that. He had just finished showing curly-bro all the wonders of his new kitchen, and had left him alone to tinker around with the new stove and auto-locking refrigerator—he could recognize when a man got that look in his eye, the one that implied he wanted to be left alone with his precious. A man after his own heart, to be sure. He could respect that.

"Hey, you two. How goes it?"

"We were just talking about the Going Merry's Klabautermann."

"Yeah?"

Nico Robin smiles at him as he sits down at the table with them (Pauly did a fine job with the chairs—excellent lumbar support). She looks serene, without all the blood and tears. Her eyes and mouth no longer grim or sad. That's good, he thinks. All-Sunday wasn't a good look after all.

"It's a fascinating legend, and it's one that is consistent throughout all the Blues. Every sailor who's seen a Klabautermann and survived tells the same story of a small spirit and a child's voice. Soon afterward, each of them lost their ships, most in tragic accidents and others—"

"R-Robin," the kid squeaks.

"It's a good thing, the Klabautermann," he interjects. "Even if it only shows up near the very end. It means your ship loved you enough to say goodbye." He addresses this last part to the kid, who he knows needs to hear it most, and who's looking down at his hands in his lap.

"Yeah," the kid says with a heavy sigh. "At least we got to say goodbye and thank her for everything. We'd be dead meat if she hadn't come back for us."

The kid sounds upset. It's a sore subject still and he understands and empathizes completely. Ships are living things after all, ships are nakama. Love and care for them and they'll do good by you. It's a shipwright's truth and sometimes it's the only truth that matters on the Grand Line.

He and Nico Robin exchange a brief glance before she reaches out to put her hand—a real one—on the kid's arm. "We appreciate everything Merry's done for us, more than words can say. She was lucky to have you looking after her."

The kid nods, an accepting gesture but not more than that.

"And you, Longnose-kun," Nico Robin continues. "If not for you, we never would have gotten away. We were lucky to have you looking after us too."

"No, it was Merry—"

"You were the one who heard her calling for us and told us to jump."

"Only after Luffy risked his life to pummel Lucci into the ground. And it was Sanji closing those gates that we were able to—"

"It was you in the Tower of Justice."

He chimes in here: "That was some damn fine sniping back there. Though your song could use a little work."

"I'm only here now because of you," says Nico Robin, and she squeezes the kid's arm lightly.

The kid looks up at them, tight-lipped and silent as if afraid to believe them. They both know the look well and they know it doesn't belong on the face of a nakama. Before the kid can deny everything again, Nico Robin says, "Please don't ever doubt how important you are to us."

That means a lot. It means even more, coming from Nico Robin, who had run away precisely because the doubt and insecurity had gotten to be insurmountable, and the kid seems to understand this as well. There's a lesson to be shared here, two nakama welcomed back to a crew who never wanted to let them go in the first place.

"Y-Yeah!" the kid quips, slams a fist down on the table and then looks at it as if unsure how it got there. "Of course," he soldiers on anyway, withdrawing his hand. "What would you guys do without me, right?" The inflection of his question is a bit too wavering, too halting, as if the words were being pried from his throat syllable by syllable.

"Right," says Nico Robin. She's serious. She's always serious.

And the kid grins at this, a huge, happy grin that stretches his face sideways and scrunches his eyes, makes his nose quiver; these youngsters still got it in them. Then the kid falls out of his chair, shrieking with laughter as a dozen or so of Nico Robin's hands start to tickle him out of nowhere. He rolls across the lawn, screaming for mercy between fits of hysterical giggles, attracting the attention of Strawhat and the reindeer gorilla. Two dozen more hands appear and it's like the volume knob got turned all the way back up to mayhem, right where it should be—at least until three well-aimed mikans are hurled at the trio and a repentant silence falls.

"Who'd've thought the big, bad Nico Robin was really just a big 'ol softie," he snorts.

She sprouts an arm on his forehead and grabs his nose, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to remind him of the too fresh memory of an earlier… incident.

"Oi, watch it, Nico Robin!"

The arm disappears and he uncrosses his eyes to see her smiling again at him. Funny, he thinks, how she's completely unlike the Ms. All-Sunday he had imagined, concocted in his own head from some unfocused snapshot in the morning paper. Silly of him. He tells her this, because he ought to be honest and she might like to know what she was to him for so long.

"Are you disappointed?"

He blinks, surprised. "That's what you want to ask? Not what All-Sunday is or why it was so important?"

"All-Sunday is tradition observed on the islands of Water 7, Pucci, San Faldo, and St. Poplar in the Grand Line. It is also observed in many regions of South Blue, where it is believed to have originated, as well as in small, isolated pockets of West and North Blue. It is a day to remember and pray for the dead. On All-Sunday, you visit their graves, leave flowers and light candles, hoping that your prayers will reach them, wherever they are. Similar traditions are also found in each of the Blues. East Blue, for example, has a wide variety of festivals for departed spirits. Some cultures actually believe that spirits can visit—"

"All right, all right! Don't look so pleased with yourself, Nico Robin."

"All-Sunday is important to anyone who's lost a loved one," she concludes solemnly.

No argument there. "Is that why you took the name when you were in Baroque Works?"

"Yes." She folds her hands on the table neatly, fingers entwined. "Are you disappointed?" she asks again.

"Naw," he says this time. "Why would I be?"

"Because you wanted something from Ms. All-Sunday. Because I'm not who you thought I would be."

He thinks for a moment, staring at the spot on the horizon where Water 7 had been visible just a few hours ago. He's reminded of something suddenly. "You up for a story, Nico Robin?" he asks.

She makes a humming sound, props up her chin on an extra hand.

"Listen good, then." He kicks his feet up on the table, scratching a phantom itch on his metal nose. "When I was younger, granny Kokoro told me this local tale about some fat bearded man who would come once a year to deliver presents to the kids who were good and nice and didn't blow too many things up with cannons."

"He sounds like an intriguing individual."

"Yeah, tell me about it. Anyway, he'd come down the chimney"—somewhere on the ship, Zoro sneezes—"and leave presents like new wrenches or hammers or sheets of titanium alloy or, if you were really super that year, a plank or two of Adam wood."

"How did he fit down the chimney?"

"Doesn't matter."

"And did all the children get gifts of this nature?"

"Wha—why would you even ask that? What little punk wouldn't want the new top-of-the-line automatic Supadriv screwdriver with seven speeds, rechargeable battery with a solar power option, and detachable, customizable handles in fifty-four different colors, plus one that changed color depending on your mood? Oi—are you making fun of me, Nico Robin?"

"Of course not. Please, continue."

"Tch." He shoots her a withering look, but it doesn't seem to have any effect and he's left feeling a little embarrassed. "Well, it's just a story of course, but I really believed it then. Year after year I'd stake out trying to catch sight of this mysterious man who broke into our house in the middle of the night to leave us presents."

"He does sound like a rather suspicious character. Grand larceny would be a legitimate concern, among other things. Very many other things."

"… anyway. When I was ten, I finally caught him. And turns out, it was Tom all along. I mean, of course it was Tom, who else would it be? But you know, I wasn't disappointed at all. There was no reason to be. No one knew more about all the newest tools and the best materials for building, and so no one could possibly choose better presents if they tried. And Tom was always there for us, and he wouldn't disappear after that one night. He gave us more than just presents. As far as I was concerned, Tom was better."

He watches her face as she considers this. Or he tries to watch; he can't quite meet her eyes. "You get what I'm saying?" he prods after a pause. "You're not the Ms. All-Sunday I imagined, but that doesn't matter. You're Nico Robin." The _you're better_ goes unspoken.

"But is it all right even though I'm not who you wanted?"

"Well, I wouldn't say _that_." He clears his throat, a bit too loudly. She raises an eyebrow at him. Calm and inscrutable this woman. Be cool, bro, be cool.

He puts his feet down and leans forward, taps the tabletop with a finger, as if pinpointing a particularly obscure symbol on a blueprint. "Look, I had wanted to ask you—Ms. All-Sunday—a question. That question was, does Tom forgive me? That's what I wanted to know. But I've realized it's not an answer that someone else can give me, just like that. It's something I have to earn. I always knew that, deep down somewhere. I'd been working for it, protecting Water 7 and trying to keep it just the way it is because that's how Tom loved it. It hasn't been easy, you know! But those guys back home were a lot of help, even though they were mostly idiots, and we were a family, just like Tom and Baka-burg and I used to be but bigger, and damnit, it's not like I miss them or anything…!"

"You earned it," she says as he takes a moment to dab at the corners of his eyes with the hem of his shirt.

"Yeah, I did." It feels good to say that. "And now I can follow my own dream, sailing with you guys on this ship. I'm on the right track. He said you have to take pride and responsibility when you build something, and to do it with a _super_ don! So that's what I'm doing. Sunny and me are going to see you guys to the end of the world and back, you can count on it!"

She laughs softly, and he sits back, pleased. Laughter is always something he appreciates; he knows how hard it is to replicate with artificial vocal chords, which never vibrate quite the way he wants, and laughter always has a hollow sound when bouncing off all that metal. It's such a human sound, such a human thing to do, and Nico Robin's laugh is deep and rich. Reminds him of rippled moonlight on the water and dark, wet wood and earth. Just earth, but the kind that grows trees, tall and proud and ancient. You and I both know trees, Nico Robin.

"He would be very proud of you," she says, her smile like the curve of the distant horizon flipped upside down.

He thumbs his nose, adjusts his sunglasses. "Heh. Let's save that for after this baby completes her maiden voyage. Then we'll talk, me and him. He damn well better have something good to say to me by then."

"You'll surely have a number of impressive tales to regale him with, after sailing with Luffy. He'll enjoy them. You're a good storyteller, in your own way. You're quite honest, even when you're lying."

"Honest, huh?" He lays his hand on the table, palm facing up. "You know that riddle about the ship that goes through so many repairs that eventually every plank of the original wood has been replaced, and the sails have been so patched up that none of the original canvas is left?"

"Is it a new ship altogether, or is it still the old one, the one you set sail on?"

"Yeah," he says, curling his fingers inward one by one, then outward. "I wonder that about myself sometimes, you know. All these new parts in me, most of them not even flesh and blood. At some point, making all these modifications—don't get me wrong, they're all super, but—did I become something else? Some new guy?"

"What do you think?"

He holds up his hand between them. "See here? The lines on my palm? Look closer, do you see my fingerprints? This is all synthetic skin now, but I made sure to engrave all the lines and swirls and crisscrosses from my hands when they were still human. Sort of like a reminder that I'm still myself. I can't run away from what happened just because I put a cannon in my arm and a fridge in my torso. I'm still the old me."

An eye suddenly opens on the back of his hand, blinking at him slowly. He jumps a little in surprise, but stares back at it, half-amused, half-perplexed.

"It's more than just a sprawl of lines on our palms that define who we are," says Nico Robin's voice from across the table. "A body is just a set of parts. The truly human pieces of yourself can't be replaced, can't be fixed as easily as a broken leg or sprained wrist."

He lowers his hand and meets her gaze, the real one. "Yeah, I know." And he does feel as if she sees and accepts these pieces of him—silly though they are, they're human after all. How he had put so much misguided, longing hope in an imagined persona, how he used to be a loud-mouthed kid struggling to stay up way past his bedtime, how he had painstakingly mapped out and carried over every single line on his palms because he was afraid of losing himself.

A rumble comes from somewhere deep in the ship, in the proximity of the long-nose's new workshop. He's already halfway out of his seat before she tells him not to worry, a faraway look in her eyes like she is concentrating somewhere he can't see. There's no damage except for a few singed hairs and eyebrows, she informs him. Lucky they hadn't lost any appendages.

"Ha!" he snorts. Loudly. He can't help it.

And she smiles at him, eyes focused, bright.

.

.

.

BONUS:

"Cutty Flam."

"Eh?"

"I came across it when researching the whereabouts of Pluton. Tom's name came up, of course, and so did the names of Tom's Workers. Cutty Flam was your name before Franky, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"It's a very unique name. I must admit, when I first heard it, I invented a personality to go along with it, much like you did with Ms. All-Sunday. I tried to imagine the kind of person Cutty Flam would be."

"And?"

"And you're exactly how I imagined."

"… What's that supposed to mean? What kind of person did you imagine?"

"Oh, you know."

"Uh, no. I don't."

"Don't worry about it."

"… not super at all, Nico Robin."

* * *

(I had always assumed that Ms. All-Sunday's name was a reference to All Souls' Day, which goes with the BW holiday naming trend, but I looked everywhere and couldn't find anything to confirm this... so maybe I just made it up. But hey, Water 7 = Venice obviously, and All Souls' Day/Day of the Dead is indeed observed there, so I ran with it.)


End file.
